Stale Bread - what to do with it?

lostinrates

I use crusts in queen of puddings or bread pudding but not bread and butter pudding.

Bread crumbs for the top of gratins/ bakes or for coating things, or simply, toast.

riversidegirl

Thanks for all the ideas. I too love the crusts but I am always stuck what to do when I have an end of a loaf, perhaps two or thre slices worth iykwim which has gone stale.

zippychick

Here are some links to help you

Stale bread

Bread and butter pudding thread

how to make HM breadcrumbs

What to do with breadcrumbs

ill merge with the first link

Zip

marmiterulesok

They make nice toast or you could make breadcrumbs (and freeze if not used straightaway).

Amaretti_2

The Italians cut their stale bread into cubes and use it in salads with plenty of olive oil.

sexymouse

If they are brown bread ends, they can be used for brown bread ice cream - sounds disgusting but it's absolutely gorgeous!

LameWolf

That sounds interesting - never heard of brown bread ice cream before! What's the recipe, please?:o

I love the crusts - our HM bread never stays around long enough to get stale, I have to say.:D

Fwiw, breadcrumbs are one of the ingredients for my HM nut loaf.;)

Dunroamin

Croutons..

Seakay

Elizabeth David has a fantasic recipe for Brown Bread ice cream - here it is in full along with her comments, taken from an article in The Independent about her unpublished work:

In one form or another, recipes for brown bread ices have been appearing in print since about the mid-18th century. An early one was given by Emy, the French confectioner who published his elegant little book L'Art de bien faire les glaces d'office in 1768. His recipe called for rye bread, though today brown bread ice cream is more usually made with wholemeal.

Popularised in England early in the 19th century perhaps by Gunters, the famous Berkeley Square confectioners who did the catering for fashionable balls and receptions, brown bread ice also became a speciality of the Winchester College shop, and was much loved by the scholars of that famous school.

Some twenty-five years ago, remembering the delicious brown bread ice sold by Gunters in the nineteen thirties - they delivered it by the bucketful for outdoor parties - I evolved my own version based on the recipe given by Alfred Jarrin, an early Gunter specialist, in The Italian Confectioner which first appeared in 1820, and published it in a magazine.

About a year later I was gratified to hear from a courteous reader that my ice, made by her Italian cook, had been joyously received by her husband, an ex-Winchester scholar. The recipe I now use, slightly modified since those days, is as follows:

For 600 ml (1 pint) of double cream, the other ingredients are 180 g (6 oz) of crustless wholemeal or dark rye bread, 200-250g (7-8 oz) of sugar.

First whisk the cream and 60 g (2 oz) of the sugar until it just starts to thicken. Do this by hand, in a chilled bowl. Take care not to overdo the whisking. Turn the cream into a metal or plastic box and set it to freeze.

Pull the bread into small pieces, put them on a baking sheet in a low oven. Let them toast until crisp, then crush them into coarse crumbs. This should be done by hand. A food grinder or chopper tends to make the crumbs too uniform and too fine, the crunchy and uneven texture of hand-pounded breadcrumbs being important to the success of the ice.

With the remaining sugar and the same amount of water make a thick syrup. Pour this, warm, over the breadcrumbs.

When the cream has frozen just enough to be firm, turn it out into a chilled bowl, whisk it for a few seconds, fold in the bread and syrup mixture. Before returning the cream to the freezer, taste it for sweetness. If too sweet add a little extra cream.

Take care not to serve the ice in an over-frozen condition. The crunchy crumbs contrasting with the soft smooth cream are the attributes which constitute the appeal of this very simple mixture.

(Unpublished, c1984)

zippychick

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ZIP